


You Belong in a Zoo

by hauntedlittledoll



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Paparazzi, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s never a quiet trip to the park with baby!Damian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Belong in a Zoo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happyrobins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyrobins/gifts).



> Written for the wonderful drakefeathers' birthday. Title borrowed from the more amusing version of "Happy Birthday."
> 
> Companion to [Rapping at the Windows, Crying at the Locks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1109146)

If Stephanie thought trudging across the city with a ten year old at her heels was social suicide, she had never tried to cross a playground with a toddler.

Judging.  So much judging.

Steph kept on smiling and carefully refrained from picking up speed.  Damian didn’t seem to have noticed the sideways glances—too busy scowling at his light-up sneakers—and Steph would like to keep it that way.

After a fast and furious discussion in the parking lot, Damian had consented to holding her hand across the street and on the path.  The moment they hit grass, the tween in a toddler’s body had dropped it like a dead fish.

Stephanie suspected that she shouldn’t find that look of disdain quite so endearing.

"Look, kiddo," Steph sighed as they approached the sand box.  "I know that you’re really ten years old, and I know that to you, this is the worst punishment ever.  However, these people?" she indicated with a quick glance around as she crouched to his level.  "They do not know that, and they will call social services on me in a heartbeat if you continue to look like you’re being tortured.  So _smile_.”

Damian sulked instead, scuffing his feet irritably as he half-heartedly tugged on her sleeve.

Steph took what she was given with good grace, and tried not to smile herself as she heard Damian mutter something about the “good of the mithion” under his breath.

The littlest Boy Wonder had been so catastrophically miserable about being turned into a toddler, that Steph had high hopes a ‘mission’ would raise his spirits.

Even if said-mission consisted of sitting in the sandbox while Steph scoured the playground for evidence of the Riddler’s next missive and Dick pumped the parent-brigade for information regarding a little pharmaceutical indiscretion in the neighborhood.  If said-mission allowed Damian the opportunity to be a normal little kid for a while … well, the Bats were _excellent_ at multi-tasking.

Speaking of Dick, he should be here by now.  It didn’t take that long to put up the roof.  Steph could just about make out the pretty little sports car that Dick considered inconspicuous, but there was no sign of an undercover Batman.  She craned her neck a little further, and almost suffered whiplash when she finally spotted him half-absorbed by a crowd of reporters.

Backpedaling hastily, Steph hit her knees and pretended to admire Damian’s half-hearted piles of sand as Tim muttered in her ear about _"a little complication."_

"Ya think?" Steph hissed.

"You’re red," the toddler pointed out, one eyebrow raised delicately.  "What did Graython do now?"

"Hush.  Don’t look over there," Steph ordered, passing him an abandoned shovel.  "Proxy, please tell me that Vicki Vale isn’t in that media circus."

_"Front and center,"_ her tech analyst returned.

Damian frowns.  “I don’t like Vale.”

"It’s mutual, sweetie," Steph murmured distractedly, ruffling his hair.  "Any idea why they cornered Dick?"

_"It looks like they were covering the same case Bats is,"_ Proxy allowed, carefully considering.  _"At least that’s what they were asking your detective about before catching sight of Gotham’s most eligible bachelor out and about."_

Steph winced.  Nick Gage was not _hers_ so much as he was _Team Batgirl’s_.  She was very okay with that, and no one ever gave Batman this kind of grief over working with the Commissioner.

_"I thought B was Gotham’s most eligible bachelor?"_ Tim echoed, sounding distracted.  Steph hoped that he missed the teasing in favor of finding them an alternative ride home and possibly sending some back-up for Dick.

Stephanie Brown certainly wasn’t getting publically involved in the affairs of the Waynes’ with or without the toddler in her care.

_"Your dad might be easy on the eyes and rich as Midas, but he’s getting kind of old, and he has a homicidal kid,"_ Proxy explained as she worked her usual miracles.  _"Besides, our Batman has a great smile and a nice butt hiding his heart of gold."_

Tim choked on air.  Steph was just glad that Damian couldn’t hear the other side.

In addition to being extremely offended on behalf of both Bruce and Dick, Damian had a habit of repeating awkward things verbatim to otherwise impartial parties.  Like Alfred.  And Babs.

A flicker of light caught her eye and Stephanie swore softly at the now-empty sandbox.  Tim squawked in her ear, but she flung a muttered “complications” at the former Boy Wonder.  It didn’t shut him up, but Steph had more important things to do … like lunging for the escaping toddler.

"What are you doing?" she hissed as Damian squirmed in her arms.

"I wish to get a better view," he informed her irritably.  "The top of the thlide would be a more thuitable vantage point."  He pointed impatiently at the structure in question.

Now that half the playground was staring at Steph, she had no choice but to plop him at the top of the slide and jog around to the other end.

Damian, of course, did not slide down immediately, much-preferring to watch his older brother suffer at the hands of the media.  “You would think in a city the thize of Gotham, there would be _thomething_ more newth-worthy than Graython.”

"You’d think, wouldn’t you," Steph returned sweetly, faking a smile at the nearest parent and practicing not-quite-lies that were not-quite-believable in her head.

Above her, Damian continued to muse thoughtfully: “We’ll never get anywhere at thith rate.”

"Sweetie," Steph cajoled warningly to remind Damian where they were and who they were pretending to be—mother and son on a day outing, perfectly normal, never laid eyes on a cape or a Wayne in their lives.  "Are you stuck?"  And then, because she was a little stressed and he was being _very_ difficult: “Do you want Mommy to help you down?”

Damian turned back to her with obvious disgust.  “No, I do not,” he enunciated very clearly.  He had clearly been practicing.  “I am not stuck.  In fact, I …” Damian trailed off as the most awful smile overtook his tiny face.

Steph felt a moment of true fear at the sight.

So small.  So evil.

"I don’t know what you’re thinking, little D, but forget it!"  Her whisper sounded kind of shrill; Steph hoped no one noticed as she took a step closer to the devious little monster.

"Forget what?" the toddler parroted innocently.

"Damian Alexander Wayne, don’t you _dare_ —”

"Look, Mommy," Damian shouted over the whispering park-goers, standing up to wave at Dick with more enthusiasm than Steph had ever seen her Robin display toward anything.  "It’s Daddy!"


End file.
